1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an RFID tag set made up of two or more components for constructing an RFID (Radio_Frequency_IDentification) tag which exchanges information with an external device in a non-contact manner through a combination of the components, an RFID tag obtained by the RFID tag set and RFID tag components built in the RFID tag set. Note that among those skilled in the technical field of the present application, the “RFID tag” used in the present specification is regarded as an inner component (inlay) for the “RFID tag,” and so it may be referred to as an “inlay for radio IC tag.” Or this “RFID tag” may be referred to as a “radio IC tag.” Furthermore, this “RFID tag” also includes a non-contact type IC card.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various types of RFID tags that exchange information with an external device represented by a reader/writer by radio in a non-contact manner are proposed in recent years. As a kind of this RFID tag, there is a proposal of an RFID tag having such a structure that a radio frequency communication antenna pattern and IC chip are mounted on a base sheet made of plastics or paper and such a type of RFID tag is designed to be used in a mode in which the RFID tag is pasted to an article and information on the article is exchanged with an external device to thereby identify the article.
Articles to which RFID tags are pasted may include metallic articles such as steel products and when RFID tags are pasted to such metallic articles, radio waves for communication of the RFID tags may be blocked by the metallic articles, causing the communication distance to be reduced. For this reason, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-298106 proposes an RFID tag including an antenna pattern provided on a tabular substrate and a metal film provided on the back of the substrate and the RFID tag having such a structure can produce an effect of extending the communication distance.
However, this RFID tag described in this Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-298106 requires a tabular substrate having a thickness of λ/12 or more to produce the required effect and in the case of, for example, a UHF band (950 Hz band), λ≦30 cm, and the thickness of the substrate becomes approximately 2.5 cm or more. This causes the RFID tag to become too thick, making it difficult to use the RFID tag as a tag to be pasted to an article.
Furthermore, in the above described mode of use, descriptions such as the name and code of the article are supposed to be printed on the surface of the RFID tag and there is also a proposal of a printer, etc., for printing such descriptions, but the RFID tag having the substrate described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-298106 also has a problem that the presence of such a substrate makes difficult printing using a conventionally proposed printer.